What to do when selling MacBook

[raymanh]

I'm looking at a selling my 2016 MacBook Pro to fund a 2017 model.

I know the process of singing out of iCloud, iTunes etc. But I don't have good internet where I am. So when the buyer comes around and decides to buy, I will sign out of everything and erase the SSD in disk utility. Is that enough? Then the buyer can reinstall macOS when they go home.

 

[Audit13]

You should confirm that you can perform an Internet recovery to ensure that you can enter disk utility when running internet recovery and that the buyer can reinstall the OS via internet recovery.

 

[satcomer]

Then use then the Apple document What to do before you sell or give away your Mac. It tells you the procedure!

 

[raymanh]

You should confirm that you can perform an Internet recovery to ensure that you can enter disk utility when running internet recovery and that the buyer can reinstall the OS via internet recovery.

How can I show it without actually going through with it as I won't have internet?

 

[Audit13]

I recommend making sure the buyer knows that he or she has to reinstall the os without your help, then you should be fine.

 

[Fishrrman]

You're better off doing the wiping and OS re-install BEFORE you sell it.
That way you know it will boot up for the new buyer.

Could save a lot of trouble.

 

[raymanh]

I'm not selling on eBay so it's very much people coming to see it then decide. I'd think that they would want to browse around a working OS environment before purchasing, but that would give me no time to then reinstall before the buyer leaves with it.

Otherwise I use the mac everyday so don't want it in a ready to be setup state while waiting for buyers.

So the question is, is it secure enough for me to just sign out of everything and delete my files. Then the buyer can go home and reinstall the os?

 

[ZapNZs]

Couldn't you just use the local recovery partition to delete the OS volume and reinstall macOS? IIRC this requires little-to-no internet access so even if your connection is spotty it should be enough to reinstall the OS, as the core install files are already on the system.

Alternatively, you could create a USB installer on another Mac, and use this to install macOS. IIRC, this will require a few moments of internet access to validate the installation.